Swan Song
by Nymphadora-CullenBAU
Summary: Other than the person waiting at his final destination, Spencer Reid was alone tonight. In 2022, Reid says goodbye to a friend and father figure. Written for the CCOAC Future Fic Challenge. Warning: Rated for Character Death.


**_My entry for the CCOAC FutureFic Challenge. My pairing was Aaron Hotchner and Spencer Reid. I honestly have no idea where a Death!fic came from, but it came. Anyway, I'm home for the summer and if/when my Internet gets fixed after the storm knocked it out, I'll be able to post and write more._**

**_WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH!_**

**_I do NOT own Criminal Minds! If I did, I'd have an iPhone._**

...

_The silver swan, who, living had no note. When death approached unlocked her silent throat. ~ Orlando Gibbons_

The night shift nurse at the desk was named Barb. That was all they really knew, and all they really cared to know. She was a severe woman, with cropped, iron-gray hair and steely diamond hard eyes. Her outfit was always pristine and she never had a single strand of hair out of place. Whenever any of them came to visit, she was always there, watching.

Tonight, it was his turn to walk by the desk, to watch as she stared at him and to stare right back.

Spencer Reid knew her type. He had met many of them at his mother's hospital. These were the nurses who had seen the worse of what was to offer in their particular occupation. Theirs were the stories that most thought of when you heard of hospitals, the stories of patients lost in the night, of weeping families and heartfelt goodbyes.

Having lost his own mother in the last few years, Spencer felt a twinge of sympathy, something he knew that only this iron maiden of the wards would truly feel long after the night was over. Now in the midst of his fortieth year, there was still a youthful spring in his step, despite his light brown hair, now lined with a few sparse gray tips. As he walked past her desk, he nodded once, acknowledging her presence.

Other than the person waiting at his final destination, Spencer Reid was alone tonight.

Morgan was in Chicago with his mother and sisters; Desiree was getting married and Derek was the best man. Garcia was in another hospital across town, giving birth to her second child with Kevin Lynch. Reid could imagine her screaming abuse at her husband of five years and now two children. And JJ was away with Will and Henry; her mother was getting old and they were transitioning her into a nursing home in Allentown, as she didn't want to be separated from her husband of 35 years.

Rossi had died about three years ago, just a month after his second and final retirement. The doctors had admitted that if his heart hadn't taken him, his liver would have finished him off in less than a year. The good news was that he hadn't suffered; his heart had stopped while he was sleeping

He made his way down the hall, the white, red and green linoleum squeaking under his worn Converse. It was dark, save for a few sparse lights the hummed above his head. He ignored it all. There was a light at the end of the hallway, a bright beacon that cheerfully glowed as he walked toward the end of the hall. Spencer tapped three times on the doorframe before entering, but it wasn't as if anyone could hear him.

Three years after Emily left the BAU for Interpol's offices in London, the team had gone after an UnSub that had shaken them in many ways. With the exception of Rossi, they had all worked with Elle Greenaway, and they had all remembered how the Fisher King had taken away her safety and how she had ultimately left the team after killing a suspect in cold blood. The case had begun simply enough, with three men, all charged with varying sex crimes. Hey had been charged and then released, either on bail or simply acquitted for their crimes. Hotch figured it out when a letter was delivered to the NYPD with his name written on it.

* * *

_Like I said, that was not an admission of guilt. Neither is this._

_Hotch looked up from the sheet of paper in his hands. His face had gone white. Before Reid, Morgan or Rossi could say anything, he picked up his phone and dialed Garcia's number._

_"Yes, my liege?" Garcia asked._

_Hotch paused, glancing at the paper once again. "Garcia, I need any information regarding Elle Greenaway's movements since she left the Bureau," he ordered, trying to keep his voice steady._

_"No problem, Monsieur Hotchner," and a moment later, they could hear her pulling up records on her computer._

_"Let's see… She bought a place in Brooklyn, set up a down payment on a car… surprisingly, she started seeing a psychiatrist, but not until late 2008 or early 2009, because the 2008 visit was simply for paperwork… She currently works as a… Oh my…"_

_"Garcia? Baby Girl?" Morgan asked._

_"She works at a law office in Manhattan. She files their cases, and this office, Konopinski, Donohue and Welles, worked the cases of all of our victims."_

_"She got their names and crimes from their files," Reid realized, leaping to his feet and crossing to the board. "The lawyers would take the cases and would work to acquit the men. When they were released, she would file away the cases, but she would also memorize the details of the crime."_

_"Then she would go to their residences late at night and kill them," Rossi grimly concluded. "She was reaping revenge for their acquittal and serving them her own form of justice."_

_"Garcia, what's her address?" Morgan growled._

_"Sending it to your PD…A! Now go get her!"_

* * *

Reid now walked into the hospital room, gazing at the bed. The man known as Aaron Hotchner was lying prone upon the mattress and tucked into the sheets. He was hooked to multiple machines, all of them keeping him alive. Reid watched as one machine monitored his heart rate and other vitals while another measured his pulse. A third machine pumped oxygen into his lungs, a fourth machine kept his heart pounding and a fifth machine patiently monitored the other man's brain activity. Well, it was supposed to; the screen was there, but nothing was registering. There had been nothing since last week, which was why Reid was there.

Hotch's doctor had explained to Spencer what was going on, even though he already knew. Aaron's brain had stopped working due to a lack of varied stimuli. The only thing keeping the older profiler alive was the oxygen machine supplying air to his lungs. As Aaron's Power of Attorney, Spencer had an important decision to make: Did he want to take Aaron Hotchner off life support?

But Reid knew they were only holding back the inevitable, like they had that day with Elle.

* * *

_Hotch had decided to send Reid in to talk to Elle. After Rossi, he was the best they had, and probably the only other person who would talk to Elle. Hotch was trying to get the officers and the SWAT teams to stand down and keep away from the doors so as not to scare her into doing something rash._

_Reid had mounted the stairs to Elle's fifth floor apartment, walked down the long dark hallway and now stood in front of her door. Inside the apartment building, no outside noise could be heard. Down the hall, someone was blaring a rap song to drown out the sirens that came from the police outside. Ironically, the song was about drugs and fooling the cops and clubbing with women and having sex. Reid winced at the sound and the lyrics and wished the guy would turn it down._

_Reid turned back to Elle's door and raised his right hand, bracing himself as he knocked three times at the door. He jumped back as the door opened to reveal Elle._

_Her appearance was disheveled. Her hair was a mess of tangles and split ends and her face was blotchy from crying. She stared at him with a surprised, almost resigned look._

_"Hey Reid," she whispered._

_"Hi Elle," he replied, trying to keep his voice conversational._

_She shook her head. "Don't put up the act, Spencer," she said harshly. "I know why you're here."_

_"Elle," he whispered._

_"Don't!" she hissed. "I saw the police cars and the SWAT vans… And I saw Hotch and Morgan outside. I know what I've done!"_

_"Why?" Reid asked. "Why did you do it, if you knew what you were doing?"_

_"I wanted them to pay for what they did," she whimpered, turning away from him. "They did it to me once, long ago. And they got off, they always, always get off! But I wouldn't let them this time!"_

_And then she turned to him, tears streaming down her face. "And then I realized what I'd done, and I remembered what you told me. I let them win, Spencer. I let them beat me. And I can't live with that, I can't!"_

_He held out his hand, beseechingly. "Come with me, Elle," he whispered. "Come with me and we can sort this out."_

_She looked at his hand and back at him. "It's too late for me," she growled. "I've made my grave and I will lie in it. I wish you could help me, but I know what's waiting. And I don't want that. I will save you and the others from having to see that."_

_And to Reid's horror she turned and ran from the door and deeper into the apartment._

_"Elle! No!" Reid screamed, but it was too late._

_As he reached her sparsely decorated living room, she had thrown open the window and climbed onto the ledge, resting on the pavement on her hands and knees. Spencer desperately reached out for her but she only turned and looked at him before she rolled off the ledge in front of his eyes._

_"Elle!" His voice echoed in the darkness of her Spartan apartment. But he knew that she was gone._

* * *

After that case, Hotch officially retired from the Bureau. He handed in his badge and gun to Strauss and emptied his office. Morgan was given the title of Unit Chief, and they hired Melanie Waters, a forensic specialist with a background in psychology and profiling to fill the spot of sixth profiler. She had left the team last year, shortly after marrying Spencer. She was at home with their first child now, a little girl named Melody.

As he sat there, watching Hotch's chest rise and fall, Reid wanted someone else to be there for this ordeal. But Jessica had given the Power of Attorney to Reid because she didn't want Jack to have to see his father die. Although in a sense, Jack had seen him die.

Last week, Jack and Aaron had been driving home from Jack's first varsity soccer game. They had stopped at a red light, were following all the safety precautions one could follow while driving. Their light had turned green and Hotch started to move forward. And then the other driver ran the stoplight and T-boned Hotch's car.

Jack had walked away without a scratch and the driver, who had a blood alcohol level of 1.25, was dead on scene. But Hotch had been airlifted to Washington National and placed in the ICU with a ventilator, heart valve and other machines. But the machines had registered no brain function.

They had waited for a whole two weeks before tonight, before Reid decided to pull the plug.

The doctor, a young woman with blonde hair named Mallory Hooper, walked into the room, consulting her chart. She looked up at Reid, a sad smile on her face.

"Would you sign here, please?" she asked, indicating a dotted line on the bottom of the first page. Spencer did as she asked, and then she flipped to the second line and he signed again, before initialing another line. She took the clipboard and set it on a nearby table before she began unhooking and shutting down various machines.

Unconsciously, Reid drifted over to Aaron's right side and took his hand. It was larger and thicker than Spencer's slim pianist's hands, but it also felt cooler, waxier. It also seemed heavier because of the deadweight of his former superior's body.

Spencer held on as the last of the machines went off. He still held on as Hotch's heart gave out and the shrill sound of the flat-lining machine filled the air.

Spencer Reid didn't let go until the nurse had to pry the dead man's fingers from his tightened grasp.

_"This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal." ~ William Penn_

...

_A/N:_

_I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

_I know I said I'd never write Character Death, but it came to me! I was grumpy at my mom and my Internet was out and... Yeah..._

_Still, I hope you enjoyed!_

_Please review? Please?_

_*~N_CBAU~*_


End file.
